


A Short Family History

by willowoftheriver



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler, ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 | JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Bridezilla, Bruno Buccellati Lives, Cesarean Section, Codependency, Crossover, Daddy Issues, Explicit Consent, F/F, F/M, Female Bruno Buccellati, Female Ciel Phantomhive, Female Jonathan Joestar, Female Kakyoin Noriaki, Female Kishibe Rohan, Forced Marriage, Genderbending, Homophobia, Implied Cannibalism, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Infidelity, Kakyoin Noriaki Lives, Loss of Virginity, Lost Love, M/M, Marriage, Meet the Family, Mohammed Abdul | Muhammad Avdol Lives, Mommy Issues, Multi, Narancia Ghirga Lives, One-Sided Attraction, Oral Sex, Organized Crime, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Polyamory, Pregnancy, Rape, Remarriage, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Teen Pregnancy, Temporary Character Death, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Time Loop, Time Travel, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Lust, Vaginal Sex, Victorian Attitudes, Weddings, bites the dust, outdated sexual mores, the blocklist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:21:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23169238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowoftheriver/pseuds/willowoftheriver
Summary: The Joestar family, seen (mostly) through the events surrounding the weddings of each successive JoJo.
Relationships: Bruno Buccellati/Giorno Giovanna, Bruno Buccellati/Trish Una, Dio Brando/Jonathan Joestar, Dio Brando/Kakyoin Noriaki, Giorno Giovanna/Bruno Buccellati/Trish Una/Guido Mista/Narancia Ghirga, Giorno Giovanna/Guido Mista, Higashikata Josuke (JoJo: Diamond is Unbreakable)/Kakyoin Noriaki, Higashikata Josuke (JoJo: Diamond is Unbreakable)/Kishibe Rohan, Higashikata Tomoko/Joseph Joestar, Hirose Koichi/Yamagishi Yukako, Jonathan Joestar/Robert Edward O. Speedwagon, Joseph Joestar/Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli, Joseph Joestar/Kakyoin Noriaki, Joseph Joestar/Suzie Quatro, Kakyoin Noriaki/Kujo Jotaro, Kawajiri Shinobu/Kira Yoshikage (JoJo: Diamond is Unbreakable), Mohammed Abdul | Muhammad Avdol/Jean Pierre Polnareff, Narancia Ghirga/Giorno Giovanna, Nijimura Okuyasu/Tonio Trussardi, Pannacotta Fugo/Narancia Ghirga, Sebastian Michaelis/Ciel Phantomhive
Comments: 31
Kudos: 159





	1. part i: joanna

There is a child in Joanna’s belly on her wedding day.

She hadn’t known until last night. The groom wasn’t supposed to see the bride just before the wedding, but Dio had slipped into her room anyway, like he always does, and she’d just laid there with her eyes closed waiting for him to touch her, like she always does.

But instead of sliding under the comforter, he’d sat on the edge of the mattress and rested his hand on her belly and told her that he knew why she’d been sick lately, why she hadn’t been bleeding when she was supposed to.

Joanna doesn’t know how Dio knows these things. She hadn’t a clue about any of it, had never even been told by a governess or a tutor the purpose of the blood that came between her legs every month.

But then, Dio had always known more than her.

(She learns of her engagement when she wakes up in her bed with a weight straddling her hips and a hand over her mouth. Dio is very warm, almost hot, and his breath reeks of alcohol as it brushes the side of her face.

He whispers to her, the accent he’s worked on so meticulously slipping into something rougher she remembers from their childhood. It had vanished around the time she had been forced to realize that however nice she was, however she tried, this boy would never like her, and she would never know why.

His eyes are the brightest thing in the pitch black of the room as he tells her he’s asked Father for her hand, and has been so graciously given it. And that means that now he can do whatever he wants with her.

He keeps his hand on her mouth the entire night. Joanna doesn’t know if that was when he put the baby in her, because she doesn’t know how to tell how far along she is.)

Her dress shimmers with silk and lace as Father walks her down the aisle. She knows a lot of other girls have walked this same pathway—fashionable, wealthy girls with blood only just slightly not blue enough for Westminster proper.

Dio is probably handsomer than any groom who’s stood at that altar before him. He cuts a perfect figure backdropped in gold, mosaics of saints gazing lovingly upon him and broken fragments of sun warming his shoulders through the stained glass window.

His eyes never once leave her, the entire time she walks the flower-strewn aisle. Then there’s a glint in them as her father offers up her arm to him.

And Joanna wonders if any of those girls before her were as scared of the future as she is.

.

Cousin Ciel congratulates her at the reception.

(But pleasantries always seem to have the opposite of the intended meaning, coming from her.)

The last Joanna heard, Ciel is still to be married in this same church several years from now, once she reaches her majority. She’s one of the few who could actually get Westminster if she wanted, but it’s not something Joanna can imagine her actually doing, especially not to marry Cousin Edward.

When Ciel was first born, everyone said they thought she would grow up to look just like Joanna. They had the same blue-black hair, the same eyes. But that was long before the fire.

Ciel is just a little girl, but it’s like something about her burned up with her parents, and what’s left behind is this blank-faced, crippled creature with one piercing eye. All her baby fat wasted away and now she’s made up of only sharp lines.

(Ciel has never liked Dio. But she reminds Joanna of him.)

There are other rumors about Cousin Ciel. She doesn’t attend school with the few other daughters of the nobility that form Joanna’s class, as her father’s death left her too busy with the Funtom Company, but she’s still talked about. And though Joanna tries not to listen to it, as it all just seems so petty and unfounded, she can’t help but overhear.

They say Ciel is doing her best to make Cousin Edward not _want_ to wed her. There’s no consensus on whether it’s on purpose or just that the poor, orphaned girl with no guiding hand has lost control over her worse impulses. But either way, they say she’s been carrying on an improper relationship with, of all people, her _butler_ , and that it may even have devolved into _criminal conversation_.

Joanna hadn’t had any real idea of what that entailed until the night she became engaged. And Ciel is so young that the thought of her involved in it is horrifying.

Yet Ciel, short and frail as she is, lace-gloved hand clenched around her walking cane, seems so very solid. Dio is smiling his sharpest, most unpleasant smile at her and she stares impassively at it, wearing that perfectly neutral, inscrutable disdain of the true nobility.

“I’m afraid I never did catch what your father did, Mister Brando,” she says. There’s barely any emphasis on the ‘mister’, but oh, it just provides the finishing touch on a question so loaded that Joanna can’t believe Ciel doesn’t know exactly what she’s doing.

Dio’s smile doesn’t vanish. But Joanna’s known him long enough to recognize that it changes— _congeals_ right there on his face.

“I so thoroughly consider Lord Joestar my father now,” he says smoothly, with a laugh. “And for such a long time. I’m sorry to say I hardly recall my dear, late, first father anymore.”

“Indeed?” Ciel asks, an eyebrow delicately arching on her small face. She’s still younger now than Dio was when his father passed. “How fortunate for you, that the pain of so intimate a loss has faded so . . . completely.”

Dio’s eyes have daggers hiding just behind them. “I suppose not all passings carry so . . . _tragic_ an impact. Tell me, are the authorities any closer to apprehending the madmen responsible for so senseless an act?”

“I’m afraid not,” Ciel says, voice even as her hand tightens just a touch atop the cane. But then she tilts her head inquiringly. “Have they been more successful with you?”

“I’m afraid it was simply illness that took my parents, Lady Ciel. Perhaps you’ll find in time how devastating even the most prosaic of things can be, when life is so very fragile.”

There’s a . . . fraction of an instant where Joanna gets the feeling she’s missing something. The corners of Ciel’s lips look to be turning up just the faintest bit, maybe smirking, and she has no idea why.

“Perhaps,” Ciel says mildly.

Dio’s hand tightens around Joanna’s arm. And though she doesn’t know if she still really likes Cousin Ciel anymore (this new, cold, broken-glass version of her)—because familial affection and _pity_ aren’t the same thing as fondness—she thinks that maybe she—she _envies_ her, in a strange little way, at least if the rumors are true.

If she doesn’t want to marry Cousin Edward, Joanna hopes she really is able to make it so that she doesn’t have to.

.

Joanna initially doesn’t have a dress on hand after Robert proposes marriage. Everything save what she’d been wearing had burned with the manor that night, and there’s been no time for even basic shopping.

Eventually, Erina gives her one, though she has to stay up all night altering it, as a dress Erina’s size would be more like a shirt on Joanna. It’s no use even trying with shoes, though, so Joanna makes the time to purchase a pair on the way to the church.

It’s a rundown little village church, the likes of which Joanna has never had cause to step foot in before. It’s a bit unsightly, but there’s also a rustic charm to it that she finds herself liking more and more.

Robert informs the vicar he’s never been married before. Joanna tells him she’s widowed, because she is. Even if he came back as some . . . thing, Dio is dead, and the bond between them was broken in the sight of man and God the instant the mask latched to his face.

Zeppeli takes a seat in a pew and proceeds to make his impatience clear through varied nonverbal signs. He’s not wrong about the lack of time, but Joanna . . . she just can’t bring herself to worry about it. Not today.

Erina picks some wildflowers for her to carry down the aisle. Joanna walks herself to the altar, and Robert grasps her hands and looks into her eyes so earnestly as he says his vows.

Some of the pain that’s carved out a permanent hole in her chest always recedes when Robert smiles at her. There’s nothing that can help with Giorno—no cure for the agony of losing a child, nothing that can numb the thoughts that come in the middle of the night about whether he suffered there in his crib, if the fire scared him, if he wanted his mother but she couldn’t go to him, couldn’t save him.

But Robert reminds her that at least she’s not alone. When the grief sneaks up to overwhelm her and keep her sleepless and she can’t help but cry—for her son, for her father, and sometimes, sometimes even for Dio—the thought of him reminds her that maybe, if they get through this, there’ll be something more for her.

And it comforts her to think that if she ever has another child, she won’t have to protect it from its father.

.

Even after he’d made his intentions clear, Robert had never come to her in the middle of the night.

Joanna had even prepared for it, lingering by the river after she finished the day’s training to rinse sweat off her body, freshen between her legs.

Joanna knows that a man isn’t _supposed_ to come into a woman’s bed before their wedding night, and once (a long time ago) she’d believed no one actually did. But then she’d realized that there was such a difference between what one was supposed to do and what one really did.

But Robert first presses his lips to hers only after the vicar tells him he can, in the sight of God. And later that night, when they’re finally alone, she’s the first to take off her clothes, her dress dropping into a puddle at her feet with a tug at one of its laces and a shift of her shoulders.

She’s nervous, of course she is, but however much she wishes she was, she’s not coming to Robert to offer her maidenhead.

But when she reaches out and, after a slight hesitation, begins rubbing her palm between his legs, and he—he just looks a little _flustered_ , his hands not even coming up to squeeze her chest, she asks him uncertainly, “You’ve been with a woman before, haven’t you?”

“Of course,” he scoffs, his breath hitching. “But not—not ones like you. Most women in Whitechapel, th-they do what they have to do to survive.”

Joanna doesn’t know what he means by that. Instead of trying to guess, she pulls his organ out and falls to her knees, engulfing him all the way past the back of her tongue and down into her throat. It had been frightening the first time this had happened and Dio had just kept pushing in and out, scraping her tonsils with every movement, but she’s learned how to breathe. She’s also learned how to suppress her gags, and swallow so her throat contracts, and flick her tongue, and let her teeth, very occasionally, just barely scrape the flesh between them.

He tastes a bit different from Dio, smells a bit muskier—Dio had always been so preoccupied with his own cleanliness. She can taste Robert’s sweat, and after a while, the familiar, small trickle of fluid that precedes seed coats her tongue and goes down the back of her throat. She enjoys the sensation of him heavy in her mouth, the tension it builds low in her abdomen, just like she sometimes had enjoyed it with Dio.

Robert has to grip the base of his manhood after a while, pulling himself back until the head pops out from between her lips. It’s the first real movement he’s made, and Joanna’s not sure why he hasn’t been thrusting in and out. He hasn’t even tugged at her hair.

“I want to—inside you,” he says, disjointed, but Joanna understands. She lies back on her new marital bed and opens her thighs. The stretch of him in her is about the same, one husband’s size comparable to the other’s, but he goes so slowly, pressing kisses to her chest and stomach and the inside of her legs where they’re up around his shoulders.

She can only imagine what Dio would think. The place that’s only ever been his has another man in it. He’s taking pleasure in it and soon he’s going to put seed in her womb and she might even grow his child in the same place she had Dio’s.

And he’s so . . . _gentle_. He doesn’t hold her down with a bruising grip. His hands don’t find their way up to her neck. He doesn’t bite at her shoulders or her breasts until he draws blood. He doesn’t flip her over and demand . . . unnatural things from her.

And it’s so ridiculous, but even as he bottoms out inside her, their hips pressed together, he looks her in the eyes and asks, “May I kiss you?”

A wife doesn’t own her body. She’s learned to accept that that’s just the way it is, and this time she’d gone into it with open eyes, trusting (hoping) that he would be kind to her. But even though he doesn’t have to ask, she still, somehow, appreciates the question.

“Yes,” she breathes.

.

Robert bawls hysterically like she’s never seen him before, but he does what she tells him.

Her labor had started but there’s no way it will progress quickly enough, and she’s dying anyway.

The cut barely even hurts, and the gush of blood and fluid smells sweet, because she doesn’t seem to be registering sensation normally anymore. Her second son’s first breath is like her first son’s last, smoke and ash.

“George,” she tells her husband. “Like we talked about.”

Her last sight of Robert is his back as she forces him to go, to save himself and their child. She regrets that they never got a honeymoon.

And as she cradles Dio’s head like she’ll never be able to George, and his mouth nuzzles and licks at her wound, the world darkens and she dies in the midst of one of those comforting thoughts from her second wedding day:

She won’t have to be there to protect George. She can trust Robert with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So ... a while back I heard about the Jojo blocklist, which I frankly think is ridiculous. So I set out to write a fic with a lot of the things they've blacklisted people for, such as the horrible crimes of genderbending, crossovers, ships that aren't all rainbows and sunshine, and even canon ships that have realistic problems.
> 
> Therefore, this fic has utterly pointless and gratuitous genderbending, all my self-indulgent ships, and basically just everything that popped into my head. I even worked genderbent Ciel Phantomhive in there as the crossover cherry on top. I mean, he and Jonathan both have that kind of blue-black hair, so why not make them related?
> 
> I really had fun with this. So . . . no regrets. And for once I've actually prewritten the majority of the fic, thus the tags for things that haven't happened yet. I just need to finish part five of the anime and get around to writing that section. I've watched about half of it already though, and Giorno's definitely going to have a harem.


	2. part ii: joseph

Joseph Joestar knows he’s a lucky man.

Lucky just to be alive, first and foremost. Lucky to now have a mother, when for all the years of his childhood, he’d never once been naïve enough to hope she was out there somewhere, alive. He’s doubly lucky that she survived Kars, the honorless fuck.

And he’s lucky to be standing here beside the priest, watching Suzie walk to him down the aisle. He’s heard that all brides are supposed to be beautiful on their wedding day, even if they really aren’t, but it’s actually true when it comes to her, this good, Catholic, virgin girl in her long white dress who’s agreed, who’s _eager_ , to marry him.

He truly is lucky.

(But she’s not Caesar.

And no one ever will be.)

.

Noriaki Kakyoin isn’t Caesar. In fact, they have very little in common.

There was a similar vibrancy to them, he supposes; both so very _alive_ in a way that Joseph has learned, painfully, just begs to be extinguished. But Caesar was such a little shit, his nose a thousand miles in the air, always ready with a pissy comment. And Joseph, being even worse of a shit, had quite enjoyed that Caesar hadn’t let him get away with anything, had kept him on his toes and challenged him in a way no one else ever had, not even Great-Aunt Erina. Certainly not Grandpa Robert, who had always looked at him and seen Grandma Joanna and not been able to say a cross word to him.

Kakyoin is studious and respectful, the type Joseph imagines had straight As and hung out in the library before Dio sunk his claws into her. She has a sharp mind, maybe even one sharper than Caesar’s, but she’s always so _painfully_ sensible, modest, not an extravagant thing about her. (Except maybe the cherries.)

She’s only ever had eyes for Jotaro, from the second she’d blinked up at him from the floor of Holly’s house. And it’s pretty subtle, because Kakyoin usually tends to be, but she’s followed him around like a puppy ever since that day.

No, she’s not Caesar, even though sometimes he thinks he sees a hint of a steel core in her that seems so familiar. And if Jotaro hasn’t noticed her yet, he’s an idiot, because she’s beautiful, and Joseph would love to fuck her.

Thankfully for everyone, however, he’s not as much of a shit as he used to be, and he has just enough self restraint to not let himself try.

.

It’s only a matter of time, of hours, now until they’re finally going to be face to face with Dio, and Joseph takes a minute to savor the drink in his hand and chuckle at the sounds from the hotel room right above theirs. There’s maybe, somewhere beneath his amusement, the slightest twinge of—well, not jealousy, but disappointment. He’s mostly just proud, though.

“My grandson’s a man now,” he says, and swigs the rest of his beer in one gulp.

Polnareff, who hasn’t bothered to flirt with Kakyoin since she made her impatience with him quite violently clear somewhere around India, stifles his own laugh into his glass, and raises a nonexistent eyebrow as the noises become even more . . . _vigorous_. “Sounds like he’s, uh, hard at the transition,” he says, voice a touch slurred. “Hafta congratulate him in the morning . . .”

Iggy grumbles from the bed, upset at his sleep being disturbed. And Avdol looks concerned, but then again, he usually does. He’s always been a bit of a worrier for as long as Joseph’s known him.

“I hope they’re being safe,” he says uncertainly.

Joseph nearly rolls his eyes, waving a hand in dismissal. “What does it matter? I’m sure Kakyoin was a good girl.”

Avdol and Polnareff glance at each other. “What does that have to do with anything?” the former asks.

“ _Because_ ,” Joseph says. He’s shocked they’re both so ignorant. Polnareff is _French_ , for God’s sake! (Though maybe, in light of the whole Avdol-thing that’s developed, the skirt chasing was just a front and he’s always been more about the guys.) “A girl can’t get pregnant her first time!”

Avdol and Polnareff look at each other again, for longer this time, with wider eyes.

Finally, Polnareff draws in a large breath. “ _What the_ —”

And Avdol looks horrified. “ _First of all—”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joseph doesn't strike me as a man with particularly enlightened knowledge on the biology behind sex things, though a lot of it's just the era he comes from.
> 
> Also, having just very recently watched the live action Jojo part 4 movie, I actually think my take on Joseph's outdated beliefs about female biology could almost be taken as validated, lol, considering Tomoko implies she was a virgin when they hooked up.
> 
> I always feel so sorry for Suzie. First she gets possessed, then she gets cut out of the loop about the Dio happenings, then she finds out she's been cheated on. And I do genuinely think she was always kind of second fiddle to Caesar in Joseph's eyes, whether you want to take their relationship as close friends or something more.
> 
> Pretty much everyone's going to want to bang Kakyoin in this. I didn't set out for that to happen; it just did.
> 
> Thanks for the response to the first chapter! I don't think I've ever updated so quickly before, but hey, it's already written.


	3. part iii: jotaro

“But I’m . . . I’m _Dio_ ,” the fucker says, completely disbelieving, and Jotaro would like to say, “We all already fucking know you’re Dio, asshole. You think that makes you special?”

But it seems quite clear that yes, Dio does believe that the very fact of him being him makes him _better_.

Or, he did believe it, at any rate. Before he was dying.

Now he can’t even seem to move, lying there twitching on the ground as blood hemorrhages behind his eyes and out of his mouth, the energy of power he can no longer maintain control of cracking through his skin and seeping light.

It’s so fucked up that this thing is the old man’s ex-step-grandfather, or whatever the fuck you would call it. Speedwagon, or _Grandpa Robert_ as the old man always calls him, probably would be proud of Jotaro right now.

Jotaro would still be over there beating the fucker into the ground if he felt like he could still walk, still hit with any strength. But he’s lost so much blood, and his head is suddenly so _light_.

Maybe he’s dying too, and he hasn’t even realized it. (Maybe he wouldn’t entirely mind if he was. Because he saw the old man and Avdol run for Noriaki after the scumfucker hit her, but the _damage_ , all that damage was already done. He _loves_ her, loves her in a way he’s never felt before, and he had to watch _her organs spill out of a hole in her stomach_.)

He wants to go over and beat Dio until his fists are broken, until Dio’s ribs are caving into his chest and his insides are just as much of a _useless_ fucking mess as he made Noriaki’s. He wants to rip that body away from him just as Dio had torn at Jotaro’s great-great-grandmother’s, chewed and absorbed it until he could use it to regenerate. It’s made of cells he fucking _stole_ and Jotaro wants to tear the head off it.

But all he can do is fall to his knees and listen and watch as the thing slips away more peacefully than it deserves.

“Useless,” he babbles, choking on blood. “Useless, all of it, so _useless_ , JoJo . . . JoJo . . .”

Dio has called him JoJo before, but this time, Jotaro doesn’t think he’s talking to him.

“JoJo . . .” He tries to raise a hand, but it falls back to his chest.

And maybe it’s because Jotaro is close to death himself, or he’s been hit in the head too many times in the span of a few hours, but he thinks he . . . sees something. There, by Dio, kneeling on the hard cement ground.

She’s very beautiful, with long hair and sad eyes. Her hands are there but not, only half-existent as she reaches them out to cradle Dio’s head.

“ _JoJo_ ,” he gasps, and chokes. “ _JoJo_.”

He doesn’t say anything more.

.

When, halfway through their repeated senior year, Noriaki tells him she’s pregnant, Jotaro doesn’t panic. He’s a little surprised, because the Speedwagon Foundation doctors hadn’t been sure if she would ever be able to have children even after all the surgeries, and the old man’s Hamon, and the hundred other treatments and techniques that had been pulled together to keep her alive.

Of course, that doubt had resulted in them not being particularly careful. But really, he finds the news pretty _good_ , for a couple of reasons: one, it means that she’s healed up even better than expected, and two—

Two is . . . complex.

He still has nightmares about Cairo. All of it, everything, from knives appearing in front of him to steamrollers plummeting from the sky over him to fucking useless, useless, useless Dio with his bloody teeth and sneering lips.

But what usually plays over and over and over and over and over behind his eyelids at night is that one moment. Dio had just killed Noriaki right in front of him and he was powerless. He couldn’t go to her. He couldn’t help her. He couldn’t even hit Dio.

He was utterly useless, and Noriaki had to _die_ because he was too stupid to figure out the power of The World on his own.

Except Noriaki didn’t die. She came back to him, and it was a miracle, and now the thought of losing her again sends him into a cold, nauseous sweat.

He knows how capable she is, both in a fight and with her mind, but it hasn’t always been enough and he just wants to—to lock her away, to make it so that he can always protect her and nothing will happen to her ever again.

So he can’t deny that he likes the thought of her staying home to care for their child.

Her parents, of course, are on the warpath from the moment she tells them. They’ve never liked him—despised him, actually—ever since they came to the inference that her sudden disappearance in Egypt had been due to his bad influence, and that her running off with him had ended with her being involved in a near fatal ‘car accident’ in Cairo. (It was kind of sad Noriaki didn’t think she could tell them about Stands, even after all she’d been through.)

Her father feels the need to come to his house and make a scene, giving him the rundown of how Noriaki had been _such a good girl before she met you_ and demanding he pay for an abortion. Jotaro informs him that Noriaki doesn’t _want_ an abortion, and it just goes even further downhill from there.

Jotaro had originally figured they should wait until after graduation to get married, but by the end of her father’s tirade, Noriaki is moving into the Kujou home, his mother is veritably _squeeing_ about a grandchild, and Jotaro decides they might as well do it now.

Holly, the annoying bitch, insists it has to be an elaborate ceremony. Naturally, that then entails the old man flying to Japan and throwing a shit-ton of money at it. By the end of it, it’s the most needlessly complex and ostentatious thing Jotaro has _ever_ seen (after all, his mother said, why choose between a Western or Japanese ceremony when you could have _both_ , and then a week’s worth of celebratory reception activities afterward?)

His father doesn’t attend. (Good. Fuck him.)

Noriaki’s parents don’t attend. (Good. Fuck them, too, though at least her mother sends a present.)

Everyone else they’ve ever met, it seems, _does_ attend, to the point that Jotaro’s surprised no enemy Stands managed to slip into the crowd.

Noriaki is beautiful, and he personally thinks the cherry earrings she (politely) fought with his mother over to wear go fine with the rest of the outfit. She’s quite clearly pregnant, despite the cut of the dress doing its best to hide it, and Jotaro doesn’t give a shit about what anybody thinks. The kid is his and she’s his and he’s hers, and if he has to go through a few days of annoying over-the-top celebration to announce it to the world, he’ll do it.

“‘Til death do us part,” is the most solemn vow he takes that day, though really what he means by it is something Avdol said once to Polnareff, a phrase in his native tongue whispered in the middle of the night when everyone else was supposed to be asleep. Ya’aburnee, _you bury me_ , because the thought of the reverse is unbearable.

Jotaro has already outlived Noriaki once. He won’t do so again.

.

For all of the old man’s extensive and varied faults, drinking too much isn’t one of them. However, when he _does_ indulge, Jotaro has learned that he gets _utterly_ shitfaced. It usually only happens on holidays or a special occasion, and today more than qualifies as one of the latter.

Not that Jotaro himself isn’t kind of happy to see his mother’s divorce from his shitbag father finalized, too, but really, he gave up on giving a shit about the man such a long time ago that he doesn’t have too much feeling on the topic at all.

Apparently, him not showing any interest in his grandchildren had been the last straw for Holly. Personally, Jotaro thinks that the years of absence and his lack of interest in things like his wife’s horrible illness and near death or even Jotaro’s wedding had already been plenty of grounds for divorce, but his mother has always been a fucking doormat.

Tonight, to try to get her to stop her intermittent periods of hysterical bawling, Noriaki has taken his mother out for a “girls' night”, whatever the hell that entails. The kids have been left fully in Jotaro’s care, as while the old man is present, it’s not like he’s actually any help.

Thankfully, they’re asleep now.

“Yep,” says the old man, shaking his head. “I always hated that son of a bitch. And I warned her, I really did.”

“You’ve said.” Many times. Jotaro probably would’ve rolled his eyes, but he’s a bit more sympathetic to the old man’s ramblings than usual.

His children are beautiful, the purest expression of his love for Noriaki there could be. She gave them to him after so much blood and sweat. Yes, he’d put them inside her but it had taken months of her discomfort, hours of her pain, to bring them into the world, and he’s truly . . . _thankful_ to her for that, because the emotion he feels as he looks at them is something he doesn’t know how to describe.

The thought of one of them growing up to marry some undeserving deadbeat like his father makes him—makes him actually _appreciate_ the old man’s restraint through the years. Yes, he knows there are worse kinds of men—Sadao Kujou, as neglectful and faithless as he’d been, had at least never raised a hand to his wife—but _still_. He would’ve beaten the shit out of him _years_ ago, if he’d been in Joseph’s position.

“Fucker,” the old man mutters, and then goes on an only semi-coherent tirade about how terrible Sadao is, how terrible his music and his shitty band is, and how Holly is the best woman he could’ve ever gotten. Then he finishes his cup of sake and collapses to his elbows, bracing himself up with them against the table. He half-dozes for a minute, but then his glazed eyes suddenly snap back open.

“What’s the best _you’ve_ had?”

Jotaro blinks at him. “Excuse me?”

“From a woman,” he says. “The best fuck.”

Jotaro blinks again. “I’ve been married since _high school_ ,” he says, like Joseph might possibly need reminding.

The old man waves a few dismissive fingers at him. “Yeah, yeah, Kakyoin doesn’t count, she’s your _wife_. Aside from her.”

The thought of fucking anyone other than Noriaki could make his dick wilt. “There hasn’t _been_ anyone other than her.”

Joseph stares at him, incredulous. “You . . . I mean, do you never give that poor girl a break? Even when she’s pregnant? That could _hurt_ her.”

Jotaro shuts his eyes, squeezes the bridge of his nose. “Yare yare daze.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always thought Holly and Sadao should've had a divorce subplot.
> 
> Thanks for the kudos and comments!!


	4. part iv: josuke

For some reason, when Jotaro-san introduces him to his wife, Kujou-san, Josuke has trouble talking. It’s like his tongue becomes too big for his mouth all of a sudden, out of nowhere, and what words he can get out are kind of, er, stupid.

Rohan shoots him a deadpan look after he stumbles to the end of the conversation and Kujou-san walks away. He doesn’t know why, but then again, since when did Rohan need an excuse to be a bitch?

.

Joseph truly hates to see Suzie cry. She’s been a good wife to him all these years, and a perfect mother to Holly. So devoted to the both of them, and so, so faithful. She deserves better; he knows that perfectly well.

“I don’t know how any of it even happened,” is all he can say, even though he knows it won’t help. “She didn’t mean anything to me. And I—”

“I know she didn’t,” Suzie sniffs, wiping at her tears with the back of her hand. She manages a sour little laugh. “Poor girl. But none of them ever do. Would you even remember her name if it wasn’t for—for this _boy_? Oh, Joseph. When are you going to realize that none of this is ever going to make it any easier? Caesar’s been gone for such a long time now.”

Joseph just stares at her, speechless. Realizes in an instant that she knows more than he ever thought she did, more than he ever would’ve _wanted_ her to.

He really has grown very fond of her since their spontaneous little wedding in Venice. He could even say he’s learned to love her. But he can’t be part of the kind of attached-at-the-hip, monolithic entity Jotaro and Kakyoin had transformed into upon marriage. His life is his own and he just can’t open himself up to her enough to share it completely, however much she might have earned it. He can’t even share the pain that’s sat in the bottom of his chest for so long, festering away into a hollow a little more with every year that passes.

He knows she deserves better. But he just can’t give it.

.

Rohan’s house is where they go to regroup after Kira slips out of Aya-san’s shop and disappears back into Morioh. She actually brings them drinks and offers them food, though only Okuyasu takes her up on it. Then she just sits there on the couch in her living room, oddly subdued. Josuke supposes she has a lot to think about.

Looking at her, he tries to imagine the girl she was—just a toddler in Reimi’s arms, shoved out of a window to safety from that nutcase. Reimi maybe could’ve saved herself if she’d abandoned Rohan that night. Josuke doesn’t know if he can even imagine what things would be like now if she had, because Rohan’s a bitch but—but—well, he appreciates how much motivation she has to catch this killer . . . this Kira Yoshikage guy.

On the loveseat, Yamagishi Yukako is attempting to comfort Koichi, but she’s so enraged by his painful near miss and Aya-san’s death that her eye is twitching, fingers digging like claws into the armrest until the leather bursts. (So Koichi ends up trying to comfort her instead.)

Much calmer is Kujou-san standing beside Jotaro and running a hand soothingly up and down his arm. He’s been stonily silent since Kira’s escape (even more so than usual), only contributing to the brainstorming about the next step they should take in the investigation. Then he seemed to lapse into thought, his skin crinkling between his drawn eyebrows, mouth set in a frown.

“You should go home,” he says suddenly, his hand coming up to cover Kujou-san’s on his arm, stilling it in place.

Her fingers tighten, her mouth instantly thinning into a line. “Jotaro—”

“The kids need you. You shouldn’t be away from them for much longer.”

“Jotaro,” she repeats, a note of irritation creeping into her voice. “Our children are, as you know, with your mother, and having been raised by her yourself I would think you’d be well aware of just how well she’s taking care of them. You’ve already been here for six weeks; certainly I can stay a bit longer—”

“There’s nothing for you to do here.”

“Did you forget how good Hierophant is at reconnaissance—?”

“No,” he says simply. “I haven’t.”

Kujou-san almost _glares_ at him. “More people will die. He might be scared off for a little while but we all know he’s going to do it again, and again, and again. If there’s anything I can do to help stop him before he kills anymore innocent girls, I—”

“You’re my wife, Noriaki, and you’ll do as I say. You’re going home, _tomorrow_.”

Josuke really, really likes Jotaro. Sure, it started out a little rocky what with all the family awkwardness, but now he has nothing but respect and admiration for him. He’s like the super cool uncle Josuke never had, even though biologically, it’s the other way around.

But Kujou-san is too beautiful to be talked to like that. Doesn’t Jotaro-san realize how lucky he is that he gets to be married to her, be the focus of all her attention? How could he be so dismissive of all that?

“ _Jotaro_!” she says, yet again, but now he’s out and out _ignoring_ her, giving everyone in the room a stoic once over before stepping out onto the side porch, pulling his cigarettes from his coat pocket.

Kujou-san shakes her head as she stares into the empty space he left behind.

“Sure is a controlling asshole, isn’t he?” Rohan mutters, though her eyes are still distant, focused off on something only in her own mind.

“It’s not that,” Kujou-san says.

(Josuke kind of, sort of thinks it is, though. _He_ wouldn’t tell her what to do, if he was—)

“He just . . .” She absentmindedly twirls her long, red bangs around her fingers, tugs at them a little. Josuke’s noticed she does that sometimes when she’s uncomfortable. “Worries. I was injured, several years ago . . . in Cairo, when we confronted Dio.”

Josuke’s only heard the name Dio a few times, and never with too much context. The guy who messed up Okuyasu’s dad, a powerful enemy Stand user. And he had something to do with the magic arrows.

“I almost died. I _did_ die, actually, for a minute or so.” She rests a hand in the middle of her torso, just under her heart, sinking down onto the couch at the opposite end from Rohan.

“What? But how . . .”

She smiles at him. It makes his chest tingly. “It was your father. He used Hamon to heal me just enough to bring me back from the brink, buy me enough time to reach a hospital.”

“Hamon?”

“An ancient technique. It’s what the Joestars used against Dio before the Stands came into it. Joseph-san was out of practice even back then, though.”

That’s . . . weird that there’s this whole thing aside from Stands that no one’s ever mentioned to him, but at the same time . . . “Is that why Dio had it out for the whole family?”

“It’s a bit more . . . personal . . . than that, as I understand it,” she says, with a little difficulty. “It has to do with your father’s grandmother, Joanna. Perhaps he can tell you more . . .?”

Josuke would rather hear it from Kujou-san, to be honest, but she looks tired. Maybe even _resigned_.

“I guess Joseph-san will be staying,” she continues. “He still needs to find the baby’s parents, after all. You know, he died for a little while in Cairo, too . . .”

Kujou-san does leave the next day.

But she’s not gone for long.

.

No one really knew, least of all Kira himself, but once Bites the Dust was activated, there was very little control to be had over it. Oh, it was just _brimming_ with power, to the point of complete and utter instability.

And, while starting at Point A and meeting the conditions for a reset would eventually complete the loop, there were . . . _many_ random detours to be had within the abyss of the space-time continuum before Point A might be reached again.

And there were so many more loops than four.

In one, before any explosions darken the day, Josuke tells Kujou-san he likes her. She smiles at him so very, very politely and tells him that she likes him too, as her newest family member, her husband’s uncle.

In another, Josuke watches Rohan crawl along the pavement after several parts of her chest have exploded. Her nails break as she drags herself, and her blood runs in the rain, and at the very last second, her eyes dart up to meet his. And though Josuke won’t ever remember that loop, there’ll always be something about Rohan’s eyes that makes his chest clench.

Once, Kujou-san blows up, and Kira tsks, because her hands were decently attractive, if somewhat unkempt, and it was a pity he’d had to waste them. Josuke won’t be able to remember the look on Jotaro’s face, or his rage or his screams or his grief, or even the way all the oxygen seems to vanish from everyone’s lungs in an instant as time stops, frozen immutably like never before, like Bites the Dust can’t handle—

Once, Josuke is on a road in the middle of a snowstorm. He doesn’t know where the road is, or why he’s there, or what he’s doing. He only has the foggiest sense of _who_ he is. He doesn’t know how long he stands there, because the snow seems infinite stretching out around him and he’s too hot for it to make him cold, so inflamed beneath his skin it feels like a fever.

When the car comes crawling past and struggles to a dead stop, the urge to help isn’t just overwhelming and natural, but familiar. It all seems so, _so_ familiar. He doesn’t even have to think about his actions as he does them. And once the car starts moving again and he can feel eyes on him, staring fixedly back as his fever spikes and his knees go weak, something in the memories he can’t quite access seems to burst and warp in on itself, and he doesn’t feel like he can identify exactly where he begins and ends anymore.

Once, he wakes up in the morning with a terrible cold and doesn’t do much of anything that day.

Once, Jotaro-san explodes, and Josuke feels like he’s lost the only brother, only _father_ , he’s ever had. But for all the seething, horrified anger that wells in his chest, Crazy Diamond doesn’t reach Kira first—instead, it’s Kujou-san’s Hierophant Green, which curls around him and _chokessqueezeschokes_ the life out of him until she explodes, too.

Once, Josuke arrives at Rohan’s to try to apologize for burning her house down, even though it wasn’t really his fault, because there’s something about the memory of her face and her eyes that makes him want to see her. He finds her lying there in the middle of her living room in a pool of her own blood, her back a destroyed mess of stab wounds, her left hand missing. And however many times Crazy Diamond tries to heal her, it’s just like Jotaro said—a life can’t be returned once it’s gone. (But he keeps trying and trying and trying and trying—)

Once, he’s in a burning house. It’s a beautiful house—like Rohan’s, almost, but even nicer, with elaborate furniture like Josuke’s never seen before. Nothing about it is Japanese and the men he sees walking through the flames, so very casually, aren’t Japanese, either. He thinks they’re speaking English, but he can only pick out a few words, because his father’s mother tongue has always been one of his worst subjects.

“—son—” the blond man says, and at least Josuke knows what that means. The man plucks a dark haired baby out of a crib that’s half-engulfed with smoke, and it stares up at him with wide green eyes. “Da-da,” it says, clenching its fingers around the yellow lapel of his shirt.

“—useless mother—” the man says back to it, and then rounds on the two men accompanying him. The darker one with the light hair just stares at the man and his son like he’s awed, like he’s looking at the most beautiful thing in the world.

The other man is shaking, and his nose is bleeding, and as Josuke watches, even more blood bursts from his tear ducts and runs down his cheeks. He says something to the blond, and even though the only word of it Josuke understands is “please”, his tone is unmistakably desperate.

“—your Stand—” the blond says, with a cruel smile. “—killing you—”

His condition rapidly deteriorates until he’s on the floor convulsing, and the room is flickering, and the blond just keeps smiling. “Now you’re just useless,” he says. “Useless.”

He looks over at the very last instant and spots Josuke, but then the room just—

Once, the invisible baby is a bomb and Joestar-san touches her first. Rohan cries for them, even though she pretends it’s just the rain on her face.

Once, Kawajiri Shinobu-san comes running after Kira because she’d decided to make a bento for him for lunch. He accepts it with a kiss pressed to her cheek, and no one explodes until much later in the day.

Once, Josuke finds himself face to face with two boys his own age, who he’s sure he’s never seen before. They’re not Japanese, and one asks him if he speaks English, to which he can only shake his head. The other seems to ask him if he speaks something else, but Josuke can’t even identify the language (though his accent reminds him of Tonio). He asks them if they speak Japanese, and they both stare at him blankly.

Eventually they give up on him entirely and walk off down the unfamiliar, foreign street, whispering to each other and cackling. And one of them, the brunet, just seems naggingly familiar, even though he really is sure they’ve never met.

Once, Josuke goes to Rohan’s to apologize for the very small part he played in burning her house down. She slaps him and tells him the apology is not accepted, nor will it ever be. (And he realizes he likes the way her chest heaves beneath her top when she’s angry.)

Once, Josuke’s house blows up with his mother inside it, and all he can do is cling to Jotaro’s side and scream and cry and moan. A little part of him deep inside where the pain is twisting into anger wishes that if it had to be one of his parents, it would’ve been Joestar-san instead.

Once, Kawajiri Hayato-kun throws himself off the roof of his elementary school. He bounces.

Once, after Rohan and Jotaro and Kujou-san and Koichi and Okuyasu and almost everyone else Josuke has ever cared about are dead, he catches Kira Yoshihiro’s picture and tears it into tiny little pieces, slowly. In some other life, maybe he would’ve still cared enough to worry about how much he enjoys his screams.

Once, Josuke is on a smoky, dingy street in a foreign country. It’s so hot that, even though it’s nighttime, the air seems to wave and bend where it hovers over the pavement. And there’s power crackling in the atmosphere, an overwhelming tension that shoots sparks along his skin, a concentrated storm right above him.

He thinks it's the Stand. It’s big and gold, made up of sharp, harsh angles, and it radiates strength like Josuke has only ever felt from Star Platinum, and malice like he’s only ever felt from Killer Queen.

The blond man it originates from is smirking at Jotaro-san. And though his nephew doesn’t look all that much different from the man Josuke knows, there’s something younger about his eyes.

Then Josuke blinks, and the blond has . . . teleported, up to stand behind Kujou-san. Except she’s not Kujou-san right now, is she? Josuke doesn’t know her maiden name, so she’s just—just _Noriaki-san_ , and that must mean the man is the one they’ve mentioned before, the one whose name Jotaro can’t say without a sneer in his voice. Dio.

“Kakyoin-chan,” he coos. He presses his face in close to her, and his tongue darts out to lick a stripe up the side of her neck. She immediately slams her elbow back at his solar plexus, but Josuke blinks again, and Dio has changed to the opposite side. “I, Dio, was a perfect gentleman with you, you know,” he says in Japanese. “You were still a sweet little virgin when I sent you away. Now you reek of his cum.”

Hierophant Green attempts an Emerald Splash. Reality skips and jumps like a broken record and it might as well have never happened at all.

“Eh, no matter. I’ll fuck you next to his corpse and show you what an inexperienced _boy_ can’t give you.”

Noriaki-san’s expression twists even further into utter nauseated rage, and she turns and spits in his face. But he reappears instantly back where he started, staring down his nose at Jotaro. His smirk is wider now.

Star Platinum roars and makes to charge forward, out of control with its master’s emotions, but a green tentacle wraps around its shoulders.

“Rather die,” Noriaki-san mutters to herself, with a tiny, disgusted shudder. Then she tilts her head up defiantly in Dio’s direction, a crazed, determined glint in her eyes. “You really want me, hmm? Come get me, then.”

She runs, and Dio— _of course_ Dio chases.

Once, Josuke goes to Rohan’s to apologize for maybe sort of playing a small role in the burning down of her house. She slaps him and tells him he’s not forgiven, but her eyes are so beautiful as they spark with anger and her chest is heaving with every breath, and one thing leads to another. Then she’s lying back on her bed and spreading her legs for him and he’s pushing inside her, and it’s the best thing he’s ever felt. And for just a little while, until people start exploding, he’s not a virgin anymore and he can still taste her on his lips.

Once, the Angelo Stone blows up, caught in Stray Cat’s crossfire. Josuke is disappointed, because Angelo didn’t deserve such an abrupt end to his suffering.

Once, Yamagishi Yukako’s hair twines around Kira’s neck, because she had been quite fond of Tsuji Aya, and the description of how her life ended makes her seethe like not even Koichi’s academic failure can. She doesn’t quite manage to strangle him to death, though.

Once, Josuke goes to Rohan’s to apologize for something that isn’t his fault and he ends up inside her, holding her to his chest and not wanting to ever leave her bedroom. He doesn’t quite know why, but something makes him feel like the world outside is lying in wait, just wanting to be _cruel_.

Once, he and Kira fight. They fight, and Josuke almost wins, in a thousand different ways. But it’s never enough.

Once, Josuke dies. He dies, and dies, and dies, and dies, and dies, and dies.

Once, one morning, he wakes up to the phone ringing, and on the other end, a little boy tells him in a hushed, rushed voice that if he doesn’t hurry, he’s going to be late.

(Josuke dies and dies. Until one time, he doesn’t.)

.

Rohan had insisted on keeping her surname. That’s technically not even legal in Japan, but it’s not like Josuke cares. She’s written under the name Kishibe since she was sixteen and if not changing that is what gets her to marry him, he’s absolutely okay with it.

Her dress, which she personally designed, is as over-the-top as he would’ve expected. It makes his father’s wife—actually quite a nice lady, now that he’s gotten to know her a little—shoot her a scandalized look. His half sister just weeps into her handkerchief, babbling about how she loves weddings.

His little great-niece Jolyne is the flower girl, a duty she carries out with much pride. Her dress, also designed by Rohan, he would have to describe as something like Hime-Lolita chic. It’s color-coordinated with the bride’s, as are the flower petals.

Their wedding is closed to the press, but it still somehow generates news. A subset of Rohan’s fans (most of them male, all of them gross) flood the internet with their outrage that she would dare to not be single anymore, because apparently being married made her unreachable in a way her being a complete stranger to all of them didn’t.

(Rohan says, with an annoyed roll of her eyes, that she’s probably going to be stalked again soon. Josuke doesn’t know how she can just mention that with such casualness, and what the hell does she mean by ‘ _again_ ’?)

And once a few pictures from the ceremony and reception leak into the media, Jotaro-san spawns a minor meme. He’s apparently now known the world over on internet message boards as “The Flower Girl’s Hot Dad”, and really, even though he’s only a little older, Josuke has utterly no idea what teenage girls are thinking. (Nor does he ever want to.)

Hayato-kun is invited, and brings along his mother, who holds her blond little toddler daughter on her lap throughout the ceremony. She’s well behaved, but the girl’s Stand occasionally flickers in and out of existence beside them, invisible to her mother’s eye. Josuke feels that there’s an interesting conversation with Kawajiri Shinobu-san he and Hayato-kun are going to have to have a few years down the line.

(Her little daughter’s name, Hayato has said, is Yoshino. With the same kanji as Yoshikage and everything. Josuke knows it’s just some bizarre coincidence, but that’s an unusual spelling and sometimes he wonders, fleetingly, if somewhere deep, deep in her subconscious, she maybe . . .)

Yukako had browbeaten Koichi into marrying her just a few days after graduation (Josuke . . . worries about how that relationship’s going to end, one of these days) and Okuyasu and Tonio had followed them down the aisle a few months later (though they’d had to go all the way to the _Netherlands_ to do it, which is pretty fucked up in Josuke’s opinion). So by now, Josuke’s pretty well versed in wedding protocol, both Western and Japanese. Naturally, Rohan had still required a rehearsal dinner, and had given intense side-eye to anyone who stepped even the slightest bit off script.

“What a bitch,” Jotaro had said, and Josuke hadn’t even been able to disagree with him because of how true it was.

Rohan had—in a tone of voice that almost would’ve seemed kind, if not for the words she was saying—forbidden her father from walking her down the aisle, because she had an aesthetic she was going for during her entrance and a man in a suit just didn’t factor into it, however closely related to her he was.

So he sits next to her mother in the front row, who sits next to Josuke’s mother, who sits next to Mrs. Joestar, who sits next to Joestar-san, who sits next to Holly. That whole setup has Josuke _extremely_ uncomfortable, even if his mother and Mrs. Joestar have so far been, at least, civil with each other.

The end of their row has three seats left open on Holly’s opposite side, one for Grandpa Ryohei, one for Sugimoto Reimi, and the last for Shigechi. As opposed to uncomfortable, those seats just make him a little sad, but he hopes they all really are present in some way, even if not the kind of fully-formed ghost Reimi had been able to manifest as in her alley. He also hopes that, in one way or another, they know that their killers have been dealt with, though he’s pretty confident that Reimi does, at least.

Rohan wrote her own vows. They’re not soppy, because this _is_ Rohan, but they are poignant and elegant in a way that none of the writing in the few volumes of _Pink Dark Boy_ he’s gotten around to reading is. (And they make him tear up a little.)

He’s not a writer. He’s sure Rohan herself wouldn’t have appreciated him even trying. But the old, traditional words he says still really come from a place deep in his heart, and he means every one.

(Though his favorite part is, of course, when they can kiss.)

The official photos that’re taken afterwards, in the interval before the reception, eventually appear in one of Japan’s top bridal magazines. Some are just of him and Rohan, the pointy crown-tiara thing she designed specially for the wedding glinting in the sunlight and kind of dominating the shot. She probably intended that, just as she probably meant for all the bridesmaids’ green dresses to pick up the green in her hair, which they do.

(The shots featuring Jotaro, when published, just further the meme. Soon there’s a small, but growing, petition circulating the internet to get him on the cover of _People_ magazine’s next Most Beautiful People issue.)

Rohan finally loosens up at the reception, even if she does glare all through the rambling speech Joestar-san makes after he’s had a few drinks. (Made worse by the fact he doesn’t speak Japanese that well to begin with, and even less so when impaired. By the end of it, it’s English with whatever Japanese words he can remember peppered in.)

But, after a few drinks of her own, Josuke gets Rohan to dance with him. And there, under the starry night sky, with their arms around each other and his face tucked into the curve of her neck, he feels like time and space are rushing out all around them, leaving them in the eye of a storm.

He doesn’t know why, because he hasn’t actually known Rohan for more than a few years. But it still seems like this moment was such a long time coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I hit peak self-indulgence in this chapter.
> 
> Thanks for the kudos and comments!!


	5. part v: giorno

Giorno issued invitations to his wedding to the extended Joestar-Kujou family because . . . well. It was perfunctory. _Familial gratitude_. Italian—well, no, not Italian politeness, as Italians aren’t particularly known for that. But _tradition_ —yeah, he could definitely blame it on Italian tradition.

There’s a—a family culture here, after all.

The problem is, Giorno isn’t actually Italian. And he doesn’t have much of a family. (Biological, that is.)

So what he was expecting was the same cold, bothered, nearly _accusing_ indifference that came from Jotaro Kujou, who had looked at him in person once and seemed to see some kind of _monster_ , worthy of only a nauseated scowl.

(He certainly hadn’t thought anyone would _accept_ that invitation. But they all had.)

Now he sits in a room—his _nicest room_ , very much on purpose—across from Joseph Joestar, an ancient old man who seems to think his surroundings are far less interesting than Giorno himself.

“Grandpa told me about you,” he finally says. He peers at him so intently Giorno wonders if he has cataracts.

“Grandpa?” he asks, after a moment of indecision.

“Robert Speedwagon. My grandpa—not yours.”

Of course not. This is his . . . his _nephew_. Somehow. His half-nephew, but that doesn’t change that he should be _older_ than this man, that he’s only here because—because—

“Your mother—my, uh, grandma, Joanna—she married Dio first. I—I never knew her. At least not in person. Grandpa Robert talked about her a lot, though. Sometimes he mentioned you, too.” Then, suddenly, this stupid old man _laughs_ —nearly cackles himself into breathlessness, a wrinkled hand rising to his mouth. “Oh, God. Now I know what it feels like. Poor Jotaro. You’re _my uncle_ , aren’t you? Really, actually, my uncle. And you’re so _young_. It makes me feel so—so—”

“Amused?” Giorno bites out, nearly squirming in his seat. Here he is, the Don of Passione and everything beyond that—feared and respected and more powerful than he ever could’ve hoped for, but this—this _nothing_ old man can reduce him to—to—

Nothing, himself.

(Because Joseph Joestar isn’t actually nothing, is he? However much Giorno wishes he could be. Instead, he’s his _blood_ and in that is every word out of the mouth of that fucking bitch Dio left him with, every word that ever made him feel pointless and small and insignificant, a burden.)

“I am glad one of us can take such . . . sport out of this, Signor Joestar. But while I’m aware how little regard my parents and their family have continually held me in—”

“Little regard?” Joestar’s laugh chokes in his throat around the words, so much he coughs and has to push that same wrinkled hand hard against his chest to get his breathing back under control. He narrows his eyes at him again, and they seem so sharp this time that Giorno disregards the thought about cataracts. “Dio was a monster,” he finally says. “It would be very simple to say he cared about nothing and no one, and Grandpa Robert said he treated your mother like shit, but yet you’re here. Right here, in this year. Do you entirely understand that he _travelled time_ to save you? So I would have to say that he did care about something other than himself, in the end. Even if it _was_ only one thing.”

Giorno can’t seem to say anything back to that. His throat sort of contracts, but there’s something blocking actual sounds.

“And your mother? She told Robert about you. So much that he still talked about you to me long after she was gone. They weren’t even married that long. But I think he knew she would’ve wanted you to be remembered, even if it made him uncomfortable. But he loved her and your mother loved you, Giorno. Until she took her last breath.”

Giorno’s not crying. He’s not, because the Don of Passione just simply can’t do that. But it’s a little hard to breathe and his eyes are—are a bit wet, and if Joseph’s hands come up to his shoulders and he maybe does something like sob a few times into the old man’s chest—well. Joseph’s vision and hearing are so bad he probably can’t tell what’s going on, anyway.

.

Giorno never would’ve once predicted that his marriage would have vaguely _political_ implications, but here they are. Bruna was once his boss, after all, and even though women aren’t exactly held in much regard in the organization, it had still subverted the traditional order for him to jump rank over his superior so abruptly.

It’s a . . . metaphorical joining, in that regard, ironing out that little wrinkle.

(And a metaphorical joining in numerous other ways no one will ever know, even his . . . family.)

The hardest part of the entire ordeal is really the rehearsal, rather than the actual ceremony, because it’s the first time numerous people are meeting each other and he has no idea how to introduce them.

“This is my . . . mother’s family . . .”

Bruna just tilts her head and smiles politely, puzzlement mostly hidden. Narancia and Trish are louder.

“You never mentioned you had a mom!” the former exclaims.

“Of course he _has_ one,” Trish says, elbow finding its way into his side. She, of all people, would be acutely aware that no one springs from nothing, however much you might wish you had.

“Giorno’s my uncle,” Joseph introduces himself cheerfully.

“Uncle?” Bruna echoes faintly. Her English isn’t fluent, but is still decent enough to know what the word means. “You are . . . _his_ uncle?” she manages haltingly, even less used to speaking it.

“No, no, no. Time travel was involved, see!”

Jotaro Kujou rolls his eyes. His wife, on the other hand—who Giorno has at least found _polite_ , if nothing else—keeps her expression carefully neutral, but nods a little.

Bruna, Trish, and Narancia are all also blank faced, so Joseph tries another tack: “Uh, _viaggio a nel tiempo_!”

Well, that’s some of the most butchered Italian Giorno’s ever heard. (Isn’t the guy’s wife Italian? Giorno’s pretty sure her accent is Venetian. So how could he be _so_ incredibly shitty at the simplest phrases in the language?)

“With . . . ah, _con_ . . . Stands!”

“Oh,” say the women and Narancia in tandem, all nodding at Joseph and the group around him, most of whom smile guilelessly back.

Giorno honestly doesn’t think he’s ever seen so many Stand users in one place, and he doesn’t say that lightly. Yes, the invitations had said something along the lines of Joseph, Jotaro, _and family_ , but apparently they’d been far too vague. Who had actually shown up weren’t just them and their wives, but also such extended relatives as Jotaro and Noriaki’s roving pack of wild kids and Joseph’s three children, who consist of Jotaro’s middle aged mother and a boy and a girl who are far too young (and Asian) to be Suzie Joestar’s. The boy, who looks only a few years older than Giorno himself, had brought his wife, who makes a habit of holding her little sister-in-law Shizuka (seriously, what kind of gross old man is Joseph that he has a _toddler_ at his age?) on her hip and interjecting here and there with scathing comments that run the gauntlet from passive aggressive to blatantly bitchy.

Koichi Hirose is also here for some reason, even though Giorno knows for a fact he’s not related to the Joestars by blood. Giorno doesn’t necessarily mind his presence since he seemed like an okay guy during their brief interaction, though he _does_ mind that Josuke Higashikata had apparently decided he had carte blanche to bring whoever to this wedding, when _plus one_ was the only thing appropriate however you looked at it. For example, also in his party is some Japanese friend and his Italian husband, who’s been cooing about being back in “the old country” this whole time.

And maybe Giorno _is_ a little relieved, in a way, that the Joestars seem to be so open minded. They’re all just great friends of Polnareff, too, in a deeply bonded way Giorno could never be with him, despite what they’ve been through together. And apparently, the Joestars have known his lover Abdul (or is it ‘ _Avdol_ ’, in some weird, quasi-Japanese pronunciation?) for even longer than they have Polnareff himself.

But at the same time, none of it really matters, because he doesn’t know any of them well enough to even begin to explain the dynamics he’s a part of. They might understand, or even accept it, but it’s not really their business.

Giorno feels, acutely, how they’re all descended from . . . from Joanna. He’s realized that he’s happy to acknowledge that part of himself and recognize it in all the other members of his family.

But he knows, at the same time, that nothing will ever change the fact that he’s Dio’s, and the rest of them aren’t. He doesn’t know exactly what happened between them save the broadest of strokes—Dio tried to kill them all, sent Stand users after them, but they killed him first—but it’s obviously left scars. There’s no other reason for Jotaro to dislike him like he does.

Giorno would understand it if Jotaro got to know him a little first. He’s well aware there are plenty of reasons to dislike him, personally. But this just seems so cold. Unfair.

It’s only thanks to Dio any of them exist, anyway. As though Joanna Joestar would’ve married some Whitechapel thug like Speedwagon if her father hadn’t been dead and her family home burnt to the ground. Giorno can’t say he knows much about class politics in fucking _Victorian England_ , but the fact of the matter is pretty damn obvious.

But Jotaro was born generations and a world away. What should he care, when he’d met Dio himself and it was so godawful it’s obviously still there lingering with him?

Giorno knows what Joseph said. He appreciates it more than Joseph could ever even know.

But standing there, watching them, he knows he’ll never really a part of this family.

.

Of course, the next day, Josuke’s bitch wife is the one who happens to see Mista kissing him in the corner five minutes before the wedding’s to start. She raises a sharp eyebrow, while little Shizuka Joestar, who she was probably escorting back from the restroom, squeaks, throws a hand up over her eyes, and disappears. Literally, vanishes. Though Rohan keeps her hand out like the girl’s still gripping it.

“You see, Shizuka-chan,” she tells her, “we’re apparently both attending our very first _lavender wedding_ , I believe the term is.”

“Oh,” comes the girl’s disembodied voice. She sounds unsure.

Giorno doesn’t know what it means either, but he bristles anyway. “It’s not like that! We just—”

“Heaven’s Door!” she calls, and Gold Experience doesn’t even have the chance to flicker into existence before Giorno’s frozen in place and the skin on his face is peeling bloodlessly away, literally fluttering open in layers like the pages of a book. Kishibe leans in to look at it intently.

In his periphery, he hears the squeaking voices of the Sex Pistols, but she’s already pulling away before they go in for an attack, Giorno’s skin closing back up.

“I thought the little popstar was wearing white for attention.”

“She—” Mista spits, but Giorno cuts him off, his lips moving with his thoughts before he’s even noticed he can control his body again.

“Trish loves Bruna!”

Kishibe smirks. ( _Stronza, cagna, fucking bitch_ aren’t even strong enough words for her.) “But she doesn't love you.”

“We love each other in our own way, not that it’s any of your business.”

“Interesting wedding night you’re going to have, though. What with you going for the bride, and the popstar there on the periphery for her, too, and him—” She gives a little half-nod towards Mista. “—for you, and the annoying young one for _everyone—_ and you’re so proud of that, poaching him from the traitor . . . it gives me ideas for my new series . . .”

Giorno hadn’t even been entirely sure she had a Stand before this, though he’d defaulted to assuming so. And he’s certainly seen scarier ones and weirder ones and stronger ones, but _this_ , this is so effortlessly _violating_.

(Even he hadn’t consciously acknowledged yet how satisfying it had been to steal Narancia away from Fugo. It had been so easy, just a few smiles and sweet words—there’d been something lost about him after Fugo had abandoned them, and something in Giorno had scented it like a shark smells blood.

Narancia’s so _stupid_ , too, and eager to please, it really is like Giorno’s the older of the two just like Kishibe assumes. And Giorno’s fond of him, sort of like a cherished little pet, but other times he grates on his nerves and Giorno wonders at his own actions, why he even bothers, when Fugo really had loved Narancia so _genuinely_ —

But that’s the whole point. And Giorno’s never claimed to be a good man.)

“You’re not putting this in a comic book,” he tells her, narrowing his eyes. God _has_ to be punishing him for daring to kiss another man in the narthex of a cathedral moments before taking wedding vows he doesn’t intend to keep.

“ _Manga_.”

“Whatever. _My_ business is simultaneous with Passione’s, and therefore _not to be discussed_.”

“I said that you gave me _ideas_. Don’t flatter yourself that you’re interesting enough for the whole thing to be based on. The makings of a bestseller you aren’t.”

Mista actually makes an offended sound. The Sex Pistols chatter angrily.

Giorno only glares at her, Gold Experience hovering beside his shoulder. She looks it up and down impassively. “Don’t you have an altar to be standing at?”

He swears under his breath as he checks his watch, because she’s right. Bruna’s going to be walking in any second now and there’s a whole basilica full of people likely wondering if he’s backed out.

Kishibe saunters off without another word, her hand still wrapped around Shizuka’s invisible one and her too-high too-thin shoe heels clacking painfully against the floor. He can only hope the Bishop doesn’t notice her and take offense at her outfit. Even he and Passione have played it conservative with their wardrobes today.

He takes a deep breath before he follows in the same direction, though he lingers after he pulls open the door to the nave and steps inside, Mista right on his heels. He can’t help but scan the crowd, eyes moving over endless rows of gangsters he barely knows, a few pews here and there of family he knows even less. Kishibe’s somehow convinced the girl to turn visible again, the two them taking a seat between Joseph and Josuke, while at the end of the pew, Signora Kujou tries to get her children to sit still with only mild success.

Nearer to the front, Trish _does_ stand out in her simple white dress. She throws wide green eyes over to the door when she hears it open, doubtlessly hoping to find Bruna, but nevertheless gives a small smile at Giorno. Beside her, Narancia waves, vibrating with excitement despite how uncomfortable he looks in his three piece suit.

“Are you ready for this?” Mista asks.

“Are you?” Giorno counters. He’s very content (okay, thrilled) to marry Bruna—he can’t deny he’d had a crush on her probably ever since she licked his face. Maybe Abbacchio had even sensed it, let it fuel the immediate spark of dislike he had for him.

But Giorno loves Mista just as much, just like Bruna loves Trish, and for all that they and Narancia had insisted that today was their wedding, too—that they’d whisper the same vows and regard them as binding, and they’d all be one big, married group—Giorno isn’t sure how long it’ll last.

They survived Diavolo, but jealousy might end up being a stronger enemy than he ever was. How is Mista ever going to be happy whenever Giorno and Bruna end up having children, when he can’t be acknowledged, has to be treated like a dirty little secret because Giorno already has enough skepticism directed at him due to his age—this is a cruel world they’re a part of, the wolves always circling for a chink in the armor, anything to exploit. Giorno’s been consolidating power, but Diavolo was powerful, too, and it wasn’t enough. It never can be.

Mista will always have to be second to Bruna, second to Giorno’s position, second to the opinion of all these worthless hypocritical murderers and criminals sitting in this church pretending they’re right with God.

It’s so unfair. Mista deserves more. Sometimes Giorno even has an unselfish moment where he wishes he would just _see_ that.

Except it also relieves him right now when Mista just smiles brightly. “I’ve _been_ ready."

Giorno smiles back, and just for now, he makes the conscious choice to let all those worries fade into the back of his mind. It’s _his_ day, after all. “Then so am I.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnnddd, Jolyne doesn't go to jail because she's been raised with two loving parents in a stable environment, Pucci doesn't reset the universe thanks to the combined might of the Joestar/Kujou/Higashikata/Giovanna family and their associates, and everyone lives more or less happily ever after. The end.
> 
> I'm just going to say in this au, Giorno somehow ended up in the custody of a follower of Dio's (in other words, his canon mother who isn't in this universe) after Dio's death, as the Joestars knew nothing about Dio's time travel shenanigans.
> 
> And, errrr, Bruno/Trish is my jam.
> 
> I'm sorry about the wait for this chapter! Seriously, thank you all for all the kudos and comments, they've kept me going! :)


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